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iPhone, the cat among the pigeons

By James Burland on December 8, 2008

Every time I fire up Trains, TV Plus, Wikipanion, Twitterrific, Apple’s YouTube app or even Sunrise, I am reminded of just how quickly iPhone apps are changing my usage of the Internet.

Take Trains as an example. Before Trains if I wanted to check on the progress of my ride home I would fire up the South West Trains website and navigate to the ‘How’s My Train Running’ page. With Trains on the iPhone, just one click plus a five second delay and I can clearly see what time my train is due in, the time at which it left every station along the route and an expected time of arrival at my final destination.

Another example? Try TV Plus. Before TV plus I would open up the Sky homepage, navigate to the ‘My Sky’ page, wait for the remote record section to load up, complete with four adverts for other Sky services and then eventually find and select the show I wanted to record. Now just two or three clicks, a couple of swipes and I’m good to go.

It’s not hard to imagine how this non-Web widgetised version of the Internet could become far more useful than the current Web-centric model, especially on mobile platforms.

If pocket computers really do represent the next epoch of personal computing then a collection of fast purpose-built applications seems, to me at least, to be a much better solution than trying to funnel everything through a Web browser. The Web is a near perfect solution for desktop computers with their blazingly fast processors, large displays and pixel perfect mouse based interface, but for the pocket computer with its smaller screen and less precise touch based interface, cheap purpose built applications offer a more satisfying experience.

This has all the makings of a classic win-win situation. The user benefits through faster and more complete service without much of the fluff that has to be cut away with the Web-centric experience. The developer benefits through micro-payments (the holy grail of monetising the Internet) in the form of application purchases through the App Store. The service provider may even benefit through reduced data charges on their ‘all you can eat’ contracts.

I’m hoping this idea takes off in a very large way. The HTML/Ajax/Flash combo is great for certain tasks, but it has been made to jump through too much flaming hoops. iPhone applications as super fit Internet nodes could bring a new level of order to the Internet and a new level of experience to you and I.

Of course, for this to happen on a grand scale requires two possible futures. First, a future where Apple completely dominates personal computing – not a good outcome as any monopoly is a bad monopoly. Second, a future where Apple unleash a (more stable and feature rich) version of Mobile OSX as an open source project.

Now that really would put the cat among the pigeons!

  • chrsfrwll

    Yep, tend to agree with you to a degree, although I think, to be fair, my use of the “mobile” internet first started to change with the N80, where I used email and web fairly extensively in place of a laptop, evolved with the N95, with a better web experience (opera mini was great) and ftp, though to be fair (again) I was using ftp on my (now very) old 9500 before even the N80. Now with the iPhone evolvution has moved up a gear and everything has become so much easier, although as is well known, several functions have had to slip by the wayside.

    I’m a MyRail Lite user and like you describe with Trains, my daily train commute has become a better experience through a couple of dabs of the iPhone screen, a few seconds of screen-loading and then a full breakdown of FGW’s abject failure to run a train on time.

    Facebook is another example (to my shame). I never really used it when it was on my laptop but now, with it on my phone I’m able to gain instant access to all my friends activities. Thankfully I’m spared the finer points of Facebook’s pokes, snowball throwing and other such activities but it’s good to see the status updates, chat and upload/see photos.

    NetNewsWire, BeejiveIM, MobileFiles (for access to my iDisk), Maps (with Google search – brilliant), TV Plus (as you mention), eBay, iBlogger, ShoZu (although I had that on my N95, it has become a better app on the iPhone) and Pro Football (for keeping up with the Eagles – good win over the Giants last Sunday!) have all become essential tools in my daily hook up to the internet. I even get my daily paper on my iPhone now (and for considerably less than the conventional paper version.

    Thank goodness for unlimited data. But wasn’t it said, a while back and possibly by SL on AAS, that once the network providers woke up to the idea of unlimited data, the mobile platform would take off?

  • http://www.Mixit.tv Gerry

    Personally I do prefer the cheaper ones – My Trains lite, and OnBox.TV – which no longer seems to be working right …

    I hate to admit it but the iPhone has stopped me switching on my laptop most nights, mainly for chat (palringo) and a few other apps!

  • http://web.mac.com/jamesburland/Nokia_Creative/ James Burland

    Chris: Unlimited data is certainly a game changer, in much the same way as it was for landline net access, although here in the UK at least the fair use policies are still a pain.

    What ‘daily paper’ app do you use, or is it via the Web browser?

  • http://web.mac.com/jamesburland/Nokia_Creative/ James Burland

    Gerry: I’m the same, I only really fire up the MacBook of an evening if I’m creating content, some things (video editing come to mind) are obviously better suited to a full sized computer… but for how much longer.

    I have a sneaky suspicion that the reason we have no video capture on the iPhone yet is because Apple are working on iLife 09 for Mobile OSX. iMovie for iPhone? Could happen.

    For me, the big change from iMovie HD to iMovie 08 was a sign of things to come, it is much more geared towards quick on-the-fly editing and via less precise controls. Just a thought.

  • chrsfrwll

    James: I get The Times ePaper. Not a dedicated app as such and viewed via Safari but it is in the same format as the paper version but formatted for mobile access. So I can read all the sections and magazines as if it was the physical paper, with all the pictures etc.. Would prefer the ability to download the whole in one hit and have it stored on the iPhone but they’re not quite ready for the iPhone version yet. Still, it’s not that bad as it is, just means I need network to read it. It works well enough over 2G networks.